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King Charles enjoys special reunion with distant royal relative at Buckingham Palace

The King shares a close relationship with a number of foreign royals


King Charles and Queen Camilla bid farewell to South Korea
Danielle Stacey
Online Royal CorrespondentLondon
On 23 November 2023
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King Charles enjoyed a very special reunion on Wednesday after a day of engagements and audiences at Buckingham Palace.

According to the Court Circular, the monarch, 75, met with one of his distant royal relatives - Her Majesty Margareta, Custodian of the Romanian Crown, 74, and Prince Radu of Romania.

The Romanian and British royal families share a close relationship, and Margareta reportedly spent her childhood summer holidays with Charles and his sister Princess Anne.

The then Prince Charles also visited the family in Bucharest during an official tour in 2017 and attended King Michael I's funeral in December that year.

And back in June, he carried out his first private visit to the country where he owns a number of properties in Transylvania. 

King Michael was the last King of Romania, reigning from July 1927 to June 1930 and again from September 1940 to his forced abdication in December 1947.

After attending the wedding of his cousins, the late Queen and Prince Philip in London, he was summoned by the ruling communists in Romania and told that the monarchy was to be abolished.

He met his wife Anne of Bourbon-Parma at the royal wedding and the pair married in Athens, Greece in 1948.

The King with Margareta of Romania in Bucharest last year© Getty
The King with Margareta in Bucharest in 2022

After King Michael's forced abdication, the couple raised their five daughters - Crown Princess Margareta, Princess Elena, Princess Irina, Princess Sophie and Princess Marie in Switzerland.

Margareta also attended boarding school in Hampshire in the UK in the 1960s and later studied at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

She enjoyed a long-term relationship with future British prime minister Gordon Brown while they were at university.

Margareta of Romania, in a blue outfit, at King Charles's coronation© Getty
Margareta of Romania and Prince Radu attended the King's coronation

In 1994, she met art therapist and part-time actor, Radu Duda. The pair married in a civil wedding at Versoix two years later.  

While Romania's royal family doesn't have an official role, Margareta formally assumed the role as Custodian of the Romanian Crown, following her father's death.

King Michael I of Romania and his daughter Margareta at Windsor Castle in 2012© Getty
King Michael I of Romania and his daughter Margareta at Windsor Castle in 2012

Margareta and Radu do not have any children so Margareta's younger sister, Princess Elena, is her heir.

An image shared by the Romanian royal family's Instagram account showed the couple before they boarded their flight to London.

View post on Instagram
 

Margareta looked elegant in a camel coat and matching trousers with a black rollneck and ballet flats, while her husband wrapped up warm in a double-breasted coat, jeans and a scarf.

Following the first day of the South Korean state visit and state banquet on Tuesday, King Charles presented honorary MBEs to K-pop band Blackpink at Buckingham Palace in the presence of President Yoon Suk Yeol and First Lady Kim Keon Hee.

WATCH: King Charles and Queen Camilla greet President at South Korean state visit

The special investiture on Wednesday morning for Jennie Kim, Jisoo Kim, Lisa Manobal and Rose Park from South Korea's biggest girl group was in recognition of the band's role as advocates for the Cop26 Summit in Glasgow.

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